‘What you get is looking in a mirror, only better’: inviting students to reflect (on) college teaching

Abstract

A growing body of literature argues for the benefits of consulting students about classroom practices and a few programs place undergraduate students as observers in college classrooms. There is little research, however, on what happens when a student who is not enrolled in a particular college course is positioned as a pedagogical consultant within that course with the goal of promoting more reflective and effective practice. The project described here aims to fill this gap and to forge potentially generative connections between the literatures on reflective practice and student voice. Drawing on the experiences of faculty members and students who have participated in the project, the author focuses on the ways in which the project introduces to existing models of reflective practice a new participant and a new process, both of which not only enrich the professors’ capacity to reflect on their own practice but also prompt students to reflect on theirs.

Keywords:

• reflective practice
• student voice
• student consultants